fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3915 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3915 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Ranma 1/2]

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05. http://i.imgur.com/HGZwElL.jpg
[linked for nudity, Craig Parker playing Gaius Claudius Glaber in Spartacus: Vengeance, "Monsters"]

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[Pree, Killjoys]

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07. [WARNING for discussion of rape]

[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]

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08. [WARNING for discussion of rape/murder]

[Lastman]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #560.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

03. https://i.imgur.com/8AAD7P2.jpg

I love Agatha Christie but I think there is a lot of good stuff out there, some of which I would consider better than hers. I love Karin Fossum, Denise Mina, Susan Hill, Kjell Eriksson ... there are a lot of good authors out there in my opinion.

What are your favorite Susan Hill books? I've read one of her books (The Mist in the Mirror) and it was honestly bad, but I'm willing to try another.

I think I started reading The Mist in the Mirror and couldn't finish it. But I like her Simon Serrailler mystery novels. He can be a little overly-perfect and Gary Stu-ish, for lack of a better word, but the people around him also seem think that and to be annoyed by it so it doesn't bother me as much as it could. According to her website she isn't going to write any more novels about him though.

I'll try those, then.

The Mist in the Mirror just pissed me off by having a really dumb, anticlimactic ending that didn't really answer any of my questions or tie anything up. Maybe that book was a one-off, though.

I'd add P.D. James's earlier works, and Ruth Rendell's short stories, to the list of authors as good/nearly as good/at time better.

I mostly read Ruth Rendell's novels but I've enjoyed most of them.

I just wanted to add Minette Walters to this thread of recs - gripping and disturbing thrillers that are also very well plotted and paced mysteries.

Huh. I've always thought her very overrated. I think at one point (I forget which novel and this is a rough paraphrase) one of her characters makes a sneering remark about detective stories that are so obviously artificial and contrived and that's the only reason why the plot works. I thought that was funny, because that's what I think of Agathie Christie novels.

She was also racist, xenophobic (particularly anti-American and anti-colonial), and anti-Semitic.

I always found the tone of her books to be self-important, which is why I never enjoyed them. The only one I made it all the way through was And Then There Were None, back when it was called Ten Little Indians (but after it'd been changed from Ten Little... other things).

Well, it'd be a funny old world if we were all the same.

I tried to read one of her books, I think it was Murder on the Orient Express. . . Anyway, the sheer amount of exclamation marks was astounding, unnecessary, & completely distracting. I didn't get very far. I'll try again some day because she is on my TBR list, but wow.

I stopped furiously reading Christie when I had figured her formula out and I started to guess the right murderer early on. I can pick still her up for nostalgic reasons once in a blue moon, but there's certainly other good crime writers out there.

This. Christie is very formulaic, even by the standards of the genre. Given the time period that's not surprising. If you like the formula, then great! But if you don't, they're going to be kind of dull and tedious reads.

I knew someone who thought Christie's mysteries were terribly sloppy.

I used to love them, but then I sort of got out of them. I do think they're plotted a lot better than most TV show "mysteries" but I don't know if they're better than everything in books. It depends what sort of mystery it is, as well. Some don't really focus on clues but more on psychology. Those tend to get on my nerves. I want some clues, something where you'd have a chance to figure it out.

Me, personally, I love Dick Francis. He was the Queen's steeplechase jockey, and all his stories have jockeys or horses in them somewhere,which was a huge draw when i was as kid.

And i just really like his characters and the mysteries he writes about.

Rec a good first Agatha mystery? I've never read her.

I'd start with something non-series like And Then There Were None. That was great. If you want to start with a Poirot, start with Murder on the Orient Express I guess (especially with the movie coming out). Or if you've seen the Suchet show, pick the story based on your favorite episode and read that. Never read more than a little bit of Marple, so I can't recommend any of those.

I'll give one of the stand-alones a go, thanks! I've never read Murder, or seen any of the Miss Marple adaptations. Or the Suchet show, heh. I am an Agatha virgin!

I love Dick Francis as well.

I have read a few Agatha Christie books but never loved them, and it was awhile ago, so I can't help you there, but I had to comment on the first part. :)

Yay!!
I have found very few people who have read his books. Like C J Cherryh - i know we're *out here*, but we don't seem to congregate. :)

I remember reading Dick Francis first in a Readers Digest condensed book - my parents had a subscription, and there were four stories per book. He was in several editions, and I read and re-read those stories until I started buying them instead. My mom loved his stuff, too.

Me too! I liked them because I typically enjoyed the characters and the mysteries were interesting, walking the balance between too dry and too sensationalistic/over-the-top.

My mom got me into them when I was like 12. I devoured them all and then picked up each new one when I saw it at the library. Apparently it's a mom thing? :D

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tabaqui - 2017-09-23 22:48 (UTC) - Expand

meredith44 - 2017-09-23 23:13 (UTC) - Expand

tabaqui - 2017-09-23 23:19 (UTC) - Expand

I prefer Ellery Queen and Nero Wolfe to Agatha Christie, but to each their own.

Another Nero Wolfe fan here. Not necessarily because of the cases, which are good enough, but for the banter between the main cast.

Yeah if you want recycled nursery rhyme plots and characters who never have to work for a living... *yawn*

In the first few years she was fresh and good. Later? Not so much.